r 



I 



I 



f 



THE 



DERIYATIOJ^r 

f 1 



OF 



ENGLISH LIBERTY. 

BY THE AUTHOR OF " ADULTS IN SABBATH SCHOOLS." 



HAVERHILL: 

PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY A. 

1833. 



. THAYER. 




Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1833, by 

A, W. THAYER, 
in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Massachusetts. 



ENG LISH LIBERTY. 



The people of Europe have generally considered liberty as their inheritance. 
They have always manifested a restlessness under the usurpations of their kings, 
and of late years, a disposition to value liberty higher than their lives. 

The fires of liberty often appear to be bursting out amongst the palaces of Eu- 
rope, and we wish to understand the ancient and modern institutions in which 
they have been so long smothering and sparkUng. 

The history of liberty is a copious subject. It shows that the character of man 
is affected by his political condition, that the same being may become, under dif- 
ferent governments, a slave, a barbarian, a voluptuary, a freeman, a scholar, a phi- 
losopher. It shows^ too, that we are, even now, but imperfectly acquainted with 
the capacity of man ; for as heretofore, when liberty and religion have partially 
prevailed, the human character has improved ; so we confidently trust, it will con- 
tinue to improve, until it bears a nearer resemblance to that Being, in whose image 
man was created. 

Among the ancient institutions which are supposed to have been favorable to 
liberty, is the religion of the Celts, the aborigines of ne^irly all the countries 
of Europe. The general laws, language, rehgion, and customs of the Celts 
were nearly the same in England, Spain, Gaul, and Germany. They were di- 
vided into small principalities, republics, or kingdoms. These principalities were 
governed by their chiefs or kings, in conjunction with the Druids. The chiefs were 
first elected by the people, and generally a son or relation of a deceased chief was 
elected, but in process of time the office became hereditary. These small states 
were often at war with each other ; and they often confederated together by trea- 
ties of alliance offensive and defensive, for the purpose of hivading foreign territo- 
ries, or of defending their own. 

When they thus confederated together, they elected a commander in chief, who 
conducted their military operations, until their union was dissolved. The arch 
Druid was also elected. Thus they were accustomed to elections, and to the fac- 
tions, conspiracies, grudges, competitions, and disappointments, as well as to the 
freedoms, virtues, and rights incident to the elective franchise. 

They confederated together by means of a Congress, or common assembly of 
all the states belonging to the league. This is conjectured to be the origin of the 
House of Commons in England, and of the States General in France. The House 
of Commons was not anciently a representation of the people, as a distinct inter- 
est from the nobles and king, but the Congress or common Parliament of the 
united States, and hence the origin of their right of raising money for all the 
folates. 



4 



This is the reason too, that, notwithstanding the numerous degrees of dignity 
in the monarchical branch of the English constitution, the House of Com- 
mons, and its members as such, are distinguished by no rank whatever ; they are 
neither above nor below any other class, but are strictly commoners. The same 
remark is applicable to the ancient states general of France, which was, as the 
term implies, a representation of the whole, and not of a part of the community. 
The modern parliaments of France have claimed the right of registering the fiscal 
edicts of their kings to give them validity. This fact goes to prove that they w^ere 
formerly not merely courts of Justice, but the national assemblies of the Franks, 
which exercised the supreme power. " The princes," says Tacitus, " deliberate 
on small matters, v/hile affairs of great importance are laid before the whole na- 
tion ; but in such a manner that these very affairs which are under the cognizance 
of the people, are at the same time laid before the princes." Such was the gen- 
eral condition of the Celts, among whom the Britons made no inconsiderable 
figure. 

I now propose to treat of the Druidical religion, as established among the Brit-r 
ons. It is an interesting field of inquiry, independent of any con'rlexion it may 
have with our liberty ; but should it be found in any age, however distant, to have 
contributed to the liberty of England, we are under obligations to study it as a 
part of the foundation of our own. 

I am sensible that a description of the Druids must encounter the prevalent er-^ 
ror handed down to us in the Greek and Roman writers, that our remote ances- 
tors were barbarians, destitute of knowledge and refinement. It is true, most 
of the barbarians were unlettered, and almost uncivilized. So doubtless were 
many among the Greeks and Romans. But it is not true that all the bar- 
barians were sunk in the common ignorance, which has been falsely charged 
upon them for 2000 years. On the contrary, we have abundant evidence that 
commerce, arts, manufactures and learning thrived among them; but there was so 
little intercourse between them and the politer nations of antiquity, that the latter 
have confounded the Celts, the earliest inhabitants of Europe, with the Northern 
barbarians who conquered them. 

Another erroneous opinion is, that the Druids were mysterious impostors, who 
pretended to hold commerce with invisible and diabolical spirits, and cheated 
mankind with the tricks of jugglers, and scourged them v.dth the bloody rites of a 
horrible religion, In the same manner the Magi of Assyria have degenerated into 
sorcerers, the Grecian philosophers into sophists, the Monks into bigots, the Je- 
suits into assassins. In the same manner in our own days, a federalist is liable 
to be depraved into a tory, and a tory into a traitor ; a democrat into a jacobin, 
and a jacobin into an incendiary. Such preconceptions should be discarded in 
our inquiries after truth. We should no longer judge the complex character of 
parties and societies by one odious trait, or one adventitious quality. 

Another objection against the Druids must be overcome. It will be said, that 
it is impossible, that men so superstitious and so cruel, could have advanced the 
principles of liberty. But the same objection exists against the Pilgi'ims of New 
England. Their intolerance towards the Baptists and Quakers, their executions 
of the witches, and their other acts of " irreligious piety" equalled the cruelty, 
and surpassed the inconsistency of the Druids, and yet we all concede that their 
religion advanced the principles of liberty. Some will contend, that the principles 
of the puritans have started the present movements of liberty in Europe. 



5 



This may not be strictly true ; yet undoubtedly the democratical notions of the 
puritans have had some bearing upon liberty even in Catholic countries. Similar 
was the influence of Druidism, sometimes direct, sometimes indirect ; but their 
faults and outrages, or rather those of their age, ought not to deprive them of the 
honor of having been serviceable to hberty, any more than the usurpation of 
Cromwell, or the execution of Laud ought to deprive the puritans of the like 
honor. 

Trusting therefore that a true account of the Druids will not be rejected, because 
it may seem novel, and contrary to our received prejudices, I will sketch so much 
of their history as appears to relate to liberty. 

The richest and most powerful men were ambitious to procure for their children 
an admission into the corporation of the Druids, which possessed all the dignity and 
authority attached to the present parliament, hierarchy, and judiciary of England. 

To them belonged the whole business of legislation and judicature. They made, 
and interpreted, and administered the law^s. The kings only executed them, as 
their principal instruments and servants. So far the Government appears to be an 
Aristocracy ; for there was no representation of the people, and the kings had no 
veto upon the statutes, and no appeal from the decisions of the Druids. But a 
closer inspection will satisfy us, that it was a mixed government, in which the 
sovereign power resided in the united and concurrent power of the king, the Dru- 
ids and the people. Over all measures of the Government, over all ques- 
tions of mere politics, such as war or peace, the king was supreme ; but the king 
was elected by the people, and could only carry his measures into effect by their 
approbation and support ; so that the king and people were sufficiently protected 
in fact, although they must have suffered many inconveniences from the want of 
a representation of the people. There was, however, less need of a representa- 
tion, than in the modern Governments, because the laws were made in such a 
manner as to give general satisfaction, without exciting the jea'Iousies of any order 
in the state. 

The Druids were divided into six distinct colleges or professions, each of which 
was occupied exclusively in the avocations of their respective departments. The 
members of one of these colleges were the judges, whose sole and undivided atten- 
tion was given to the law. They were not possessed of the professional learning of 
the other colleges, they had no particular sympathies for them against the common 
interest, they Vv'ere not allowed to quit their profession, they had no political object 
to gain, they could not command the armies, but they were educated to the law, and 
to the law they devoted their lives. When young, they heard the laws recited in 
verse by their seniors from memory, and they committed them to their own mem- 
ories. This was the business of twenty years.* After they had served this ap- 
prenticeship, and passed their examination, they expounded the laws in theif courts 
of justice. Their courts were held in the open air, for the convenience of all who 
had occasion to attend them, on an eminence, that all might see and hear their 
judges, and near their temples, to give greater solemnity to their proceedings. 
There was at least one of their places of judicature within the territories of every 
state, and perhaps of every tribe. The Arch-Druid, who was the supreme judge, 
held a grand assize once a year in the isle of Anglesea, which was owned by the 



* From them it has bren transmitted down even to us, that the knowledge of tlie law re- 
quires the lucubrations of twenty years. 



6 



Druids, or more strictly speaking, by the judges, aud was independent of all for- 
eign influences. Its situation was, perhaps, somewhat analagous to the District 
of Columbia in our own country. Here were made the new laws that were 
binding upon all the courts, and common to all the states. They were general 
maxims or principles deduced from the judicial decisions. 

The decisions of the Arch-Druid, in the Isle of Anglesea, the last resort of liti- 
gants from all parts of the country, gave to these small governments, a resem- 
blance to our own confederacy, in which the Supreme Court of the United States 
exercises final jurisdiction. His power seemed to partake of a mixture of the 
authority possessed by the popes over the ecclesiastical affairs of states disjoined, 
combined with the authority of our Supreme Court over states united. This un- 
exampled distribution of the powers of Government must have been a safeguard 
of the rights of the people. It operated like the checks and balances of concur- 
rent powers in the constitutions of England and America, and perhaps more ef- 
fectually. The kings and presidents may abuse their rights of negative and other 
legislative prerogatives ; the liberties of all countries are more exposed to the ac- 
tual and constructive violence of the executive magistrates, than to any other dan- 
ger. But among the Britons, the kings had no influence over the law ; they were 
merely its servants, and if they infringed it, they were tried like other malefactors, 
by the Druids, and deposed. We have lately seen a violation of the Consti- 
tution of France by its king. The only remedy for the people was, a 
revolution. In Britain, the king would have been summoned before the Arch- 
Druid, and acquitted or convicted by a tribunal, which was not tempted 
by any political or ambitious considerations to make bad laws, or to corrupt good 
ones, and therefore exercised an irresistible power over public opinion, and had 
no reason to fear a bad king, or to desert a good one. 

It is therefore recorded, that their decisions were always unirnpeached, and 
their persons venerated. Their laws and decisions were all committed to verse, 
and set to music, and then deposited in their memories, but they were never writ- 
ten. Here, I beg leave to suggest, with the greatest possible diffidence, might 
have been the origin of the common law, which has been considered the test 
and standard of liberty in all ages. 

Blackstone says, " that ancient collection of unwritten maxims and customs, 
which is commonly called the common law; however compounded, orfrom what- 
ever fountains derived, had subsisted immemoridbly in this kingdom, and though 
somewhat altered and impaired by the violence of the times, had in great measure 
"weathered the rude shock of the Norman conquest." Perhaps too, he might 
have added, of the Roman and Saxon. "This," he goes on to say, " had endear- 
ed it to the people in general, as well because its decisions were universally known, 
as because it was found to be excellently adapted to the genius of the English na- 
tion. In the knowledge of this law consisted a great part of the learning of those 
dark ages. " It was then taught," says ]Mr. Selden, " in the monasteries, in the 
universities, and in the families of the principal nobility. The clergy, in partic- 
ular, as they engrossed almost every other branch of learning, so, {like their 
predecessors the British Druids,) they were peculiarly remarkable for their 
proficiency in the study of the law." 

Again, "the very notion of an oral unwritten law, delivered down from age 
to age, by custom and tradition merely, seems to be derived from the practice of 
the Druids, who never committed any of their instructions to writing." Such is 
Blackslonc's iiccoiint of the ori<rin of the common law. The coiijecturo that it was 



lierired irom the Britons, is coniii-iried by the researches of antiquaries, who have 
thought that they have discovered the trial by Jury, among the customs of the Cehs, 
and that from them it tvas adopted by the earliest Saxon colonies. The law was 
committed to verse, but the facts in every trial were decided by evidence; and hence 
there was a propriety and an advantage in trusting the facts to the companions of 
the parties, and not to the judges ; and hence the impassable barrier between the 
jury and the judge, the fact and the law, the evidence and the verse. 

Here we may notice the diiiereuce between the Druids and the judges of mod- 
ern times. The judges are mere interpreters of the law as they ascertain it from 
authorities, or deduce it from acknowledged principles ; but the Druids made the 
laws themselves, or claimed to derive them from the Gods, and the people recognis- 
ed and reverenced this claim. So that the common law, in the opinion of the Brit- 
ons, was as much communicated from Heaven, as in the opinion of the Jews, was 
tiie law of Moses, If we cannot, like the Britons, believe in the divine origin of the 
common law, it is certamlv gratifyinn to believe that it has descended to us from 
jurists, whose whole lives were devoted to the law. From this circumstance we in- 
fer, that like most lawyers and judges, the Druids were too tenacious of the law, of 
the precedent, of the verse, to falter and bolt at every apparition of expediency or 
discretion. In one word, when there should be a conflict between law and apparent 
justice, as will inevitably happen sometimes, they would prefer the law to justice, 
the rule to the exception. These guardians of the laws must have been also the 
guardians of liberty; for law and liberty, are almost, though not entirely, synoni- 
mous. The security and permanence of the law proves the existence of liberty, 
which consists in a freedom fi-om all restraint except such as established law im- 
poses for the good of the community. Where there is no law, there can be no 
freedom. Where there is good law, which cannot be set ^iside by prince or peo- 
ple, by public cr private interests, by the discretion or compassion of the judge, 
there is perfect liberty. 

Now so far as we are acquainted with the laws of the Druids, they are admit- 
ted to be good laws, with perhaps the exception of those relating to religion, and 
the peculiar state of their society, of which (to say the least) we are not very 
competent judges. The fact that there was no slavery amongst the Britons, is one 
proof of the general soundness of their law. The people were barbarous, poor, often 
dependant, often oppressed, but they were not slaves ; and whenever they appeal- 
ed to the justice of the Druids, the common soldier had as fair a trial as the 
commander in chief. The rights of the peasant were protected against the en- 
croachments of the lord. 

If either subject or prince refused to submit to a judicial order, a sentence of 
excommunication was pronoiinced against him. This sentence was awful. The 
person against whom it was fulminated, was interdicted from the enjoyment of all 
sacrifices and religious rites, was held in universal detestation, as impious and abom- 
inable ; his company was avoided as dangerous and contaminating ; he was iaca- 
pable of any trust or honor, put out of the protection of the law, and exposed to 
injuries of every kind. 

This power of excommunication was popular amongst the people, because it 
was often employed by the Druids in restraining the arbitrary dominion of princes 
and chiefs. It gave the Druids an imperium in imperio, an mfluence over states 
otherwise independent of them, and 6e;u-e6« states, who might violate the princi- 
ples of their social, or international law. 



8 



Without the same reasons, the Catholics subsequently borrowed this terror of 
religion, so contrary to the spirit of the gospel, which authorizes the church only 
to exclude an heretic from its fellowship, but not to dethrone him. The thunders 
of the Vatican came to the popes, not from the gospel, but by way of rebound from 
Druidism. It was in character for the Arch-Druid, as the vice-gerent of heathen 
Gods, to hurl the thunderbolts of Jupiter. They are unsuitable weapons for Chris- 
tian pastors, and yet in dark and barbarous ages, the use of them was more justifi- 
able and more beneficial, than we can readily admit. Still, however, the excom- 
munications of the popes were usurpations over laws, human and divine, and there- 
fore have justly incurred the contempt of posterity ; whereas those of the Druids 
were consonant to the nature of their institutions, and were favorable to the 
rights of the people, and therefore they still claim the reverence of mankind. 
The Greek Patriarch resembles still more the Arch-Druid, as he is the actual 
Chief Justice of the members of his communion, and has the sole right of terrify- 
ing the disobedient by a sentence of excommunication. 

To establish the fact, that the kings were thus subject to the law, is equivalent 
to proving that there was a constitution among the Britons. Such there virtually 
was, and constitutional governments were common to all the Celtic nations. 
The petty republics of Spain, Gaul and Germany were governed by laws which 
controlled the princes. These constitutions were never violated with impunity un- 
til the religion of the Druids was overthrown. The nations of Europe, therefore, 
in endeavoring to obtain constitutions, are struggling to recover their birth-rights, 
their ancient and imprescriptable palladiums and charters of liberty, which have 
been wrested from them by successive conquests and usurpations. 

Let us now consider so much of their religion as is apphcable to liberty. The 
Druids, like the Gyranosophists of India, the Magi of Persia, the Chaldeans of 
Assyria, had two sets of doctrines ; one communicated only to the initiated, and 
concealed from the public ; the other adapted to the capacities and superstitious 
humors of the people, and professed openly. Their secret doctrines are suppos- 
ed to be more agreeable to primitive tradition, and to right reason, than their pub- 
lic ones. Csesar says, they taught their disciples many things about the nature 
and perfections of God, and some writers after much research, have asserted that 
their doctrines upon these and other subjects did not materially differ from those 
of the bible. 

Grotius says, that they imperfectly observed one day in seven as the Sabbath, 
and that they received their impressions upon the Sabbath, and upon the deluge, 
from traditions more ancient than the books of ?tIoses ; and that hence originated 
the peculiar phraseology of the fourth commandment, to remember the Sabbath 
day, as though mankind had always been informed of the nature and object of 
this universal day of commemoration. 
^ However this may be, it is certain, that they believed and taught the immortal- 
ity of the soul. Mela says, it was one of their secret doctrines, which they were 
permitted to publish, to make their disciples more brave and fearless. From 
them Pythagoras received it, and promulgated it in the eastern countries. It is 
a curious fact, that none of its first promulgators, neither the Druids, Pythagoras, 
Socrates, nor the Saviour of the world committed it themselves to writing. The 
private doctrine of the Druids, occasionally broached in public, was, that the soul 
after death ascends to some higher orb, and there enjoys a more perfect felicity- 
But the notions of the people were too crude, to receive a doctrine which depends 



9 



tjpon sentiment, to the exclusion of sensuality. It was more natural for them to 
grovel on the earth with brutalized minds, than to aspire after a residence for 
their purified souls. The Druids, therefore, did not cast their pearls before swine, 
but taught the doctrine of the Metempsychosis, or the eternal transmigration of 
souls into other bodies, because it was better adapted to their animal propensities. 

The pubhc theology of the Druids was generally couched in superstitious fables, 
concerning the attributes, offices and actions of their Gods, the modes of appeas- 
ing their anger, gaining their favor and discovering their will, delivered to the mul- 
titude in verse, abounding with figures and metaphors, and intermixed with moral 
precepts for regulating the manners of their auditors, whom they warmly exhorted 
to abstain from doing injury to one another, and to fight valiantly for their 
country. 

These declamations are said to have excited a supreme veneration for their 
Gods, an ardent love for their country, an undaunted courage, and a sovereign con- 
tempt for that most common and most useless of all fears, the fear of death. We 
infer, therefore, that the people were free ; for piety is not taught by tyrants to 
slaves ; nor is patriotism encouraged by those who are treading upon the rights of 
their countrymen, or applauded by those who have no country to love or to lose, 
— nor is courage, and the contempt of death necessary for any but freemen. 

The order of Druids who thus discharged the duties of piety, were called Ya- 
cerri, and the province of their labors was limited to the worship of the Gods ; 
but there was another order, called the Eubates, who applied themselves exclu- 
sively to the study of philosophy, and the contemplation of the wonderful worlds 
of nature. 

The^e men corresponded to the philosophers of Greece, except that they 
were public lunctionaries, and educated to philosoph}'. They delivered their 
maxims, apothegms, and moral discourses to the people in verse. As then- whole 
lives were devoted to this single science, and they enjoyed the benefit of all the 
wisdom of their predecessors, their sermons must have been strildng and impres- 
sive : one inference from which I only wish to di-aw, that their audiences were 
free ; for it is useless to talk of nioralit}- to slaves, and absurd to urge men to res- 
pect the rights of others, and at the same time to deprive them of their own 
rights. 

Another order of the Druids was the Bards. It was their business to celebrate 
the praises of their heroes in songs, which they composed and sung to their harps. 
Here we stand on fu-mer ground ; for except their poetry, all their other learning 
has been buried with its living repositories. No books have preserved it, and we 
can only judge of it by a few ruins, and a few passages scattered over the classics. 
But the bards were sufi"ered to remain fifteen hundred years after the other 
orders of the Druids were extirpated, and many of their poems have been transla- 
ted into the English and other languages. Many are secured in manuscript collec- 
tions, and many are still recited from menrory by the Irish and Scotch, which 
have passed by tradition through more than thirty or forty generations. 

I have caused," savs Spenser, '•' divers of the poems of the Irish bards to be 
translated for me, that I might understand them, and surely they savored of sweet 
wit and good invention ; but skilled not of the goodly ornaments of poetry ; yet 
were they sprinkled with some pretty flowers of their natu"^! device, which gave 
goodgi-ace and comeliness imto them."' 



10 

In Wales alone, there have been collected upwards of 2000 manuscript books 
of the bards of various ages. Some of these books have been printed, and others 
are still preserved in public and private libraries. The poems of Taliesin and 
Merlin are doubtless in this country. William Owen, in 1802, stated that he had 
perused upwards of 13,000 poetical pieces, for the purpose of compiling a Welch 
Dictionary. The reason why so few of these poems have been translated, is be- 
cause it has been found almost impossible to transfuse the softness, harmony, 
majesty and expression of the Welch poetry into the English language. Besides 
poetry, upwards of 10,000 adages and aphorisms of the bards, and some valuable 
treatises upon laws, history, and ethics, have been preserved in the Welch lan- 
guage. 

Gaelic poetry has been sung in all ages in the highlands of Scotland, where it 
has almost become a secon^ nature to the inhabitants. From the highlanders we 
have received Ossian, about the authenticity of which so much has been written 
by the jealous scholars of England; but the scholars on the continent have united 
in their admiration of it, and in their belief of its genuineness. Hume and Blair 
have written critical dissertations to prove its authenticity, and the Highland So- 
ciety have collected with immense care, whole passages of it ; some of an hun- 
dred literal lines which were repeated to them from memory by the inhabitants of 
the highlands, who learnt them from their fathers. Thus it is proved to have 
been preserved in the memories of the people without writing, 1500 years ; an 
astonishing, but not an incredible fact. 

Many of the poems of the Icelanders have been preserved in the same manner, 
and it has been conjectured that much of Homer, and some portions of our Bible, 
particularly the book of Job, have been transcribed from the tablets of memory. 

Thus the genuineness of Ossian seems to be established, even if the testimony 
of McPherson, and its own internal evidence should be rejected. The language 
of these poems, and of all the poetry of the Celts, is said to be so adapted to the 
verses and tunes, that it is impossible to alter a word without spoiling a stanza, 
so that in all probability they have come down to us entire. 

Now let me ask, would these bards have sung to slaves I Could their harps 
have been tuned to regale the ears, inflame the courage, incite the emulation, and 
soothe the cares of any but freemen ? Never; their auditors were free ; there is 
no concord between slavery and the strains of liberty and glory. 

The bards in later ages being itinerant minstrels, had frequent occasion to pass 
into hostile states and camps, and as they were liable to be suspected and treated 
as spies or enemies, and often stood in need of protection and succor, they initia- 
ted princes and others into some of the secret rites and mysteries, which had 
been handed down to them from the Druids. The initiated were enrolled into a fra- 
ternity, which was bound under all circumstances to extend to all its members, 
charity and fidelity. They bound themselves by the same ties, which were suppos- 
ed to have perpetuated the fidelity of the Druids to their owh order. Among other 
mysteries, the initiated were taught the skill, by secret signs, of making themselves 
instantaneously known to each other, and thus mutually to claim and bestow imme- 
diate quarter in war, and relief in all cases of danger and distress. Thus the initiated 
established amongst themselves a peace society, in times when peace between 
states was unattainable. The Druids always availed themselves of the advanta- 
ges of their mutual pledges to each other, so that Druids belonging to different 
and hostile states could instantly find friends even in the disguise of enemies. 



11 



Those who were thus initiated, from time to time initiated others into their society, 
so that their fraternity has been supposed to have been transmitted down even to 
us ; and its antiquity is so great, that it has been the common tradition, that Sol- 
omon was initiated, who, as the wisest of men, would doubtless become acquaint- 
ed with the pretensions of the Druids to wisdom. In this descent of certain mas- 
teries of the Druids from the remotest times, through the bards, and those whom 
they fellowshipped, and their successors, we have been taught to look for the 
origin and supposed fabulous antiquity of, what now goes under the appellation 
of Free Masonry. 

Thus the reli gion of the Druids was calculated to promote the cause of liberty. 
It was altogether superior in this respect to the gross superstition of the Saxons, 
from whom our liberties are generally derived. Woden, their Supreme Deity, was 
the God of War. They believed, that if they obtained his favor by their valor) 
they should be admitted after death, into his hall, and there satiate themselves in 
eternal carousals with ale, drunken from the skulls of the enemies whom they 
had slain in battle. This idea of Para<3Is<» excited their ruling passions of revenge 
and intemperance. The more enemies they killed, tho more skulls they would 
lay up for their future potations. But revenge and drunkenness are both fatal to 
liberty, which consists in the security of the rights of others as well as of our own. 
whereas revenge makes us violate the rights of others, and drunkenness disquali- 
fies us to defend our own. The one makes us murder our neighbors, the other, 
ourselves. The hall of Woden must have reflected down upon the earth its own 
brutality, and licentiousness. We cannot, therefore, but rejoice, that the Saxons 
were converted, and that we, their descendants, now anticipate a heaven which 
neither robbers nor drunkards can enter. 

It is certainly wonderful, that while the Saxon theology was so depraved, the 
Celts should have set apart and supported at the public expense, three separate 
orders of men to worship the Gods, to teach morality, and to chant the glory of 
patriots. 

The attention of the worshippers of God was not withdrawn from devotion to 
settle the questions of natural and moral philosophy ; the philosophers did not 
abandon the books of nature and morality to search the abstruse mysteries of prov- 
idence; the bards could soar without any clogs, from earth into the highest regions 
of fancy. 

Liberty in every age has been found in concurrence with learning ; for the com- 
petitions of freedom stimulate the free to study, and the demonstrations of learning 
teach scholars to be free. 

The learning, therefore, of the Druids is a proper subject of inquiry. They 
used the Greek letters to preserve their public records, but all their religion, poetry 
and learning were confided to the memory. They had under their care, in the 
deep recesses of the forests, various schools, academies and colleges. There, the 
youth were all educated by the profession of teachers, until they were fifteen years 
old. By this system, information must have been universally diffused, had they not 
prohibited the use of books and writing. Their mistake and selfishness in this res- 
pect can only be accounted for, by resorting to a Providence, which directs human 
wisdom and overrules human folly in subservience to its eternal purposes. These 
seminaries were so celebrated that the youth from all parts of the continent 
flocked to them as to the schools of the prophets. The instructers delivered their 



13 



lesions in verse, which the students were obliged to learn by heart. A complete 
course ofEducation consisted of about 20,000 verses, and required an application 
of 20 years. 

Cicero tells us that he was acquainted with Divitiacus, a Druid, who professed ta 
have a thorough knowledge of physiology. Aristotle says, that philosophy came 
from Gaul to Greece, and not, as is generally supposed, from the orientalcountries. 
They taught that the moon shone with borrowed light ; that the earth revolved 
round the sun, and other doctrines of the Copernican system, which Pythagoras 
learnt from them. They calculated eclipses in the same vague manner, that as- 
tronomers now predict the return of the comets. Anatomy was encouraged by 
them to such an inhuman excess, that one of their anatomists, Herophilus, lectui-ed 
upon the bodies of 700 living men, to explain the human structure. Their knowl- 
edge of geometry is confirmed by the best historical evidence ; for Caesar says, 
that when any disputes arose about the limits of their fields, they were settled 
by the surveys of the Dmids. Mela, the geographer, a native of Spain, and of 
course acquainted with the Druids, flourished in the year 45. He says, that 
they were consummate ma^tprs of eloquence, which they frequently exercised in 
their capacity of teachers, priests, philosophers and lawyers. Now pro\-ing them 
to be learned men is nearly equivalent to proving that they were the advocates of 
the rights which they studied, of the principles which they deduced, and of course 
of liberty, which flows from rights and principles. There never existed a race of 
learned men who were not the first to discover the enemies of liberty, and the 
last to join them ; who were not the first in its cause to rally their countrymen 
to the field, and the last to leave it. Greece, Rome, England and America, and 
clouds of magnanimous witnesses, all testify, that learned men must, by the very 
constitution of things be the friends of Liberty — and not only the firiends, but like 
the Druids, the martyrs of liberty. They testify too, that whenever the liberty 
of a country is destroyed, learning and the love of the arts, alone survive the 
wreck of its glory. 

The Druidical ruins and monuments, still existing, corroborate the evidence 
already adduced in behalf of the learning of the Druids, and prove their skill in 
mechanics and mathematics. The cromlecks or circular druidical temples are 
found in England and other countries. The ancients adopted symbolical figures, 
to personify metaphysical subjects. Among these figures, the circle was the most 
mystical and awfid, denoting eternity and infinity. As the circle has neither 
beginning nor end, it is a type of the Deity, and admonishes us to leave things 
earthly and temporal, for things heavenly and eternal. 

It was the custom also of many nations to worship their Gods, and the sun, 
moon, and fire, either on the summit of a mountain, or within the area of a raised 
bank. The roof of their temples was the immense concave of the heavens, and 
the field of vision the extended horizon. This explains the reason, why the Druid- 
ical temples were round and open at the top. They are imiformly disposed in 
a circle, and consist of one, two, three or four concentric rows of upright stones. 
The outer cncle had imposts upon the stones, which made a perfect ring of 
the top. 

The Cromleck in Wiltshire is upon the most stupendous scale of any in Eng- 
land. It consisted of a circular range of 100 immense stones with four other cir- 
cles within the area. It was environed with a deep ditch and high bank. Diverg- 



13 



ing from the temple were two avenues or double rows of upright stones, extending 
a mile each way. At the extremity of one of these avenues, were two oval ranges 
of upright stones. In these avenues they held their chariot races. 

Stonehenge, however, on Salisbury Plain, is more celebrated, because it is less 
decayed. It ranks next to the Pyramids of Egypt, among the grand monuments 
of antiquity. It has always attracted the pencil of the artist, and the lore of the 
antiquary, and what is more remarkable, the animosity of the controversialist. 
Hecatceus and other Greek authors, Diodorus Siculus, who wrote about the time of 
Caesar, Nennius in the Sth century, many Welch writers, JelFrey of Monmouth, 
and a large number of modern writers treat of Stonehenge. There is no quarry 
nearer than fifty or sixty miles from whence its immense stones could have been 
taken. There is a similar Cromleck at Aubrey, one at Kildare in Ireland, and 
numbers in Germany and other countries. 

In the Isle of Anglesea, are the ruins of a Cromleck, of the Principal Druid's 
palace, of his supreme tribunal of justice, of a large theatre, and other edifices. The 
ruins of St. Paul's church in London, would make but a sorry figure by the side 
of these mammoth carcasses of Druidical structures, now imbedded beneath, or 
mouldering above the turf with such dejected grandeur, that we seem almost to 
hear the groans of antiquity. 

There is a stone monument in the Isle of Purbeck, of 407 tons, standing on a 
barrow or tumulus 90 feet high — a tumulus in Wiltshire, 170 feet high, — a rock 
idol or giant, ISO feet .high, cut out of a hill near Cerne; an oval hewn stone in 
Wales, of 750 tons, pointing exactly north and south, and many artificial rocking 
stones, in Wales, Scotland and England, resting upon a pivot, so that a child can 
move them to and fro, but yet no animal, and scarce any mechanical power can 
displace them. These and other monuments, so greatly superior to what we ex- 
pect of the Monument of Bunker Hill, must convince us of the skill of the Britons 
in mechanics. 

Severus' Wall, built by British skill and labor, and unlike the works of the Ro- 
mans, and most probably only repaired by them, was of free stone, upon which a 
running cement was poured, by which the whole wall was made as firm as a rock. 
It was eight feet thick, 12 feet high, and forty miles long. Upon the walls were 
placed castles 60 feet square, at the distance of 6 1-2 furlongs from each other, 
and tm-rets four yards square, about 300 yards distant from each other. There 
were 4 turrets between every 2 castles. Pipes were laid under ground to convey 
the sound from one turret and castle to cinother. There was a deep ditch connec- 
ted with the wall, and a military way , well paved, and in some places magnificent. 

Many stone obelisks firom 10 to 20 feet high are found in Scotland, Ireland and 
England, highly ornamented and carved with hieroglyphics, and the figures of an- 
imals of grotesque shapes ; but they have never been compared and classed by an- 
tiquaries versed in the Runic, Celtic and Irish characters, and they perpetuate 
nothing but the nothingness of human pride. Perhaps, like the obelisks of Egypt, 
they were erected many ages before the Trojan war. They have not decayed 
and perished with the decline and ruin of the nations which reared them, but the 
very names of the nations are lost. Successions of states, too, may have been 
able to have read them, but these also have disappeared. They remain only as 
vestiges of the downfall of thrones, as fragments from the wrecks of empires. 

I have now given an imperfect account of the little that is preserv ed of 
a race of men long since extinct, but who for thousands of years acted a conspicu- 



14 



ous part in the world. We first hear of them in Homer, where Achilles prays to 
Dodonsean Jove, 

" Whose Groves, the Selli (Celti) race severe, surround. 

Their feet unwashed, their slumbers on the ground, 

Who hear from rustling oaks his dark decrees, 

And catch the fates low whispered in the breeze." 

Pope has here somewhat amplified upon the original ; but that Achilles was 
tinctured with Druidism, is confirmed by the Druidical sacrifice of living Dogs, 
Horses and Men, which he ofi'ered upon the funeral pyre of Patroclus. 

Virgil probably alludes to the Druids in his Culex, in the following lines trans- 
lated by Lucius M. Sargent. 

" Here sacred oaks the will of fate revealed 
Ere golden Ceres turned the fruitful field." 

The Druids paid divine honors to the oak ; the British formerly considered it 
a sacred tree, because it preserved the mistletoe, as they have latterly considered 
it a royal one, because it preserved the king. 

How long before the age of Homer, the Druids presided over the solitudes of Eu- 
rope we know not; we only know, that from time immemorial down to the Chris- 
tian era, they were the sages and priests of Europe, over whose characters a dark 
brilliancy has been cast by the legends and traditions of antiquity. Of the succes- 
sions of people who have appeared and vanished under their sway, we only know, 
that they were divided into petty states, which tended to make them free and in- 
dependent, but barbarous and warlike, and that their perpetual wars tended to 
defeat the humanizing influences of their religion. 

Our earliest information of them is derived from poetry, which always survives 
other compositions ; and it is not unlikely, that their remembrance may be per- 
petuated by poetry, when all the other learning of our own age is consigned to 
oblivion. 

Gray is the most finished poet of modern times. His Elegy in the Church 
Yard, and his poem of the Bard, appear to be destined to live, as long as any of 
the works of art, which we possess. His Bard describes the departing figure of 
the last relicks of the Druids ; and to that I beg leave to refer. 

" On a Rock, whose haughty brow 

Frowns o'er old Conway's foaming flood ; 

Robed in the sable gaib of woe. 

With haggard eyes the poet stood ; 

(Loose his beard, and hoary hair, 

Slream'd like a meteor to the troubled air) 

And with a master's hand and prophet's fire, 

Struck the deep sorrows of his lyre." 
A race of men circumstanced like the Druids, must have been a barrier 
against tyranny and usurpation. Independent as judges and priests, governed 
themselves, and governing others by immutable laws, they must have had more 
power, with less liability to abuse it, than the prophets of the Jews and other na- 
tions, who have interposed their vetoes between sovereigns and their people. 

That we may be remotely indebted to the aboriginal British in part for our lib- 
erties, appears from the following considerations : 

I. The Saxons from whom they are generally derived, were illiterate ; they 
had not even the knowledge of the alphabet until they were instructed by 
the British. Alfred, the lawgiver of the English, was educated by the British in 



15 



part, as also were most of the Saxon princes and scholars for a number of centu- 
ries. The Saxons were converted in part to Christianity by the British, who, 
under the Saxon sway, still preserved many of their ancient laws and customs, 
none of which had been infringed upon by the Romans except those relating to 
the Christian faith. When the Saxons were brought into subjection to the pope, 
the same controversies existed between the pope and the ancient British churches, 
which were subsequently revived under Henry VIII. 

The reformation was politically, and in many particulars religiously, but the 
same controversy, which had been unsuccessfully carried on, soon after Christian- 
ity was planted in England. All the ancient English charters refer to still more 
ancient rights and liberties. For these and other reasons, which we have not 
time to debate, we conclude that the Saxons were more indebted to the British, 
than to their ancestors in Germany, for what, we now denominate the Saxon 
constitutions. 

II. The Welch, Irish and Scotch were never subjugated by the Saxons. They 
are to this day the lineal descendants of the British, and many of the principles in 
the English and American constitutions can be traced through them. There is 
good evidence of the existence of a legislative body in Wales similar to the present 
Parliament in England, long before such parliaments were known amongst the Sax- 
ons. Many of the Welch laws were favorable to liberty, among which was the 
law of inheritance, denominated gavelkind, by which estates were equally divided 
among all the sons, both legitimate and spurious, to the exclusion of females. 
This ancient law was founded upon the still more ancient customs among the 
Welch in relation to marriage. When Wales was united to England, this law 
was altered, so that all the legitimate children inherited equally ; and for 273 
years, the descent of estates in Wales was precisely the same as it is at this day in 
Massachusetts. 

The Irish were of the Celtic stock, and they have preserved many of their char- 
acteristics to this day. Their ancient laws, rehgion, philosophy and learning re- 
sembled the British. Cormac, a celebrated Irish prince, reigned in the thii'd centu- 
ry. He exposed the errors of the Druid worship, and paved the way for the in- 
troduction of Christianity in the fifth century, by St. Patrick. 

The Brehon law, so called from the Brehons, a class of Druidical judges, an- 
ciently prevailed over the island. The Irish were attached to this law, so late as 
the reign of Queen Elizabeth. They always considered the imposition of the 
English laws upon them as cruel oppression. They have always considered 
themselves rather the subjects than the confederates of the English. There is 
no doubt but the Brehon law established liberty in Ireland. All Irishmen an- 
ciently considered themselves related by blood in a nearer or more distant con- 
nexion with the chiefs of their clans ; hence they never knew the distinction be- 
tween noble and base blood. The pride of this ancient connexion is manifested 
to this day ; for nature itself seems to have blazoned forth in all the actions, looks 
and gestures of Irishmen, the indomitable spirit of liberty which they have inher- 
ited from their ancestors. Let them be ever so poor, yet they are spirited and 
proud, tenacious of their rights, and of all men, the most impatient of contempt. 
It is easy to make an Irishman a pauper ; impossible to make him a slave. The 
incessant stream of Hibernians into our own country, particularly into the south 
western states, has doubtless affected our population with a slight portion of their 
own boiling passions, wild valor, and licentious, but high-minded liberty. 



16 



Many Facts in Scotch history, too numerous to be mentioned, show the influ- 
ence of Scotland, over the liberties of England and America. The Scotch Mis- 
sionaries made the first converts to Christianity amongst the Saxons. The 
present Presbyterian form of the Scottish Church, shows that they imbibed from 
antiquity a more democratical spirit than the English. The solemn league and 
covenant of the 16th century, has tinctured both England and America with many 
anti-Anglican principles both in church and state. The Scotch always possessed 
a bolder, freer, and more insuperable spirit of independence than the English. 
The very name of a Scotchman brings with it only the association of a freeman. 
Probably their ancient condition, now mostly unknown, will be truly described 
by the well known characters of the Highlanders, who have retained more of their 
Celtic origin than any other people. 

The Highlanders were composed of a number of clans, each of which lived upon 
the lands of their chief, to whom they claimed a relationship. He was the patri- 
arch of the tribe. The feudal subordination of ranks never raised him into a lord, 
nor degraded them into serfs and villains. His castle was the paternal roof of his 
clansmen and their families. There, they enjoyed his banquets, served up with ru- 
ral magnificence. There they rallied at the first sounds of war. Except, during 
a short season in spring and autumn, when they sowed and reaped, the whole 
year was their own for amusement or wax-. In summer, they ranged over their 
romantic country. In winter they gathered round the blazing hearth, and yielded 
up their minds to contemplation, social converse, the song and the tale. Every 
chief had a historian and a bard, the spared relicks of the Dniids. Their 
legends and songs, conspired with the wild objects which surrounded them — their 
lakes, mountains, and cataracts, to give a romantic and adventurous ardor to their 
minds. 

An injury done to one of a clan, was held, from the common relations of blood, to 
be an injury to all. Hence they were constantly at war, and hence those deadly 
feuds, which descended from age to age. Always armed and covered with a plaid 
wrapt around them in such a manner, as to leave the right arm bare, they often 
marched 40 or 50 miles a day, and suddenly clashed upon their enemies with all 
the fury of their mountain torrents. The liberties of these men have been as an- 
cient and as unalterable as their cliffs and vallies. Their necks were never galled 
by a tyrant's yoke. And to their honor too, it may be said, that they have not 
only been free themselves, but they have contributed their full share to the propa- 
gation of liberty in other states. 

Thus I have attempted to show, that our liberties are derived not exclusively 
from the Saxons, as is generally supposed, but in some measure, at least, from t"he 
ancient Britons. They bore the impress and image of the Celtic nations, whose 
empires anciently extended from the pillars of Hercules to the sea of Archangel, 
so that we draw the conclusion that all the nations of Europe were anciently free, 
or at least protected by law against despotic power. We are aware, however, 
that we ought not to be hasty and positive in our deductions, for in speculating 
upon these antiquities, we are often bewildered in the mazes and sometimes lost 
in the deserts of history. 

The liberty that we discover among the aborigines of Europe, resembles the wild 
rose, which in the forest, produces but five petals, but when transplanted into 
wanner slues, and cultivated in the garden, spreads out a beautiful efflorescence of 
500 petals. 



17 



Such has become the liberty of the Britons, when transplanted into the consti- 
tutions of England and America. 

If the Druidical religion was favorable to liberty, the Christian religion might be 
shown to be much more so, for it does not even so much as justify a hierarchy, 
the distinguishing feature of Druidism, but scatters its blessings equally 
amongst all men. I cannot now, however, pursue the subject of liberty any fur- 
ther, and I will only claim indulgence while I draw a short parallel between the 
Druidical, the Grecian, and the Christian religions. 

The Druidical religion possessed many advantages over the Grecian Mythology. 
The priests of Greece and Rome were secondary and subordinate magistrates. 
The Druids formed an independent aristocracy. The priests received instruction 
from the philosophers ; the Druids taught philosophy to the people. The priests 
attributed moral evil to the obliquity of matter. The Druids to the corruption of 
mind. The priests watched the motions of birds, inspected the entrails of victims, 
and directed the formalities and parades of idolatry. The Druids speculated upon 
the nature and providence of the Gods ; collected the wisdom of ages ; condensed 
it into pithy maxims ; elucidated it by ingenious fables ; clothed it in the attrac- 
tive dress of poetry ; and pleased, instructed and governed the multitude by their 
eloquent declamations. The piiests were the instruments of the rulers. The 
rulers were the ministers of the Druids. The priests held up an omen to alarm 
the ambitious and unprincipled ; the Druids hurled the thunders of excommunica- 
tion. 

The Druids taught, that souls are immortal, and that money lent in this world 
will be repaid in the next. The priests knew but little, and cared less about the 
soul, and they coveted and kept their money like most men, for their comfort in 
this world. 

The priests were almost entirely subjected to the authority of the poets, who 
wrote not so much to teach piety and divinity, as valor and love. The bards 
were but one sixth part of the Druids, all of whom made verses, so that the bards 
exercised no more than their proportion of influence, and never like the Grecian 
poets controlled the provinces of the prelates. The Druids instructed the youth 
in morality and science, while the priests only dazzled their imaginations with 
superstitious fables and shows. 

A comparison with the Christian religion shows a different result. We shall 
find that Christianity surpasses Druidism, more than did the latter, the Mythology 
of antiquity. 

The Druids committed all their wisdom to memory, and none to writing. 
All the wisdom of Christianity is committed to writing, and none to memory. 
The wisdom of the Druids is already lost; that of Christianity will endure forever. 
The Druids suffered none to be instructed, but by themselves in their sacred 
groves. The bible can be sent into every house, hut, tent, cell and prison, where 
a human being lives. The plan of the Druids was calculated to exalt themselves; 
that of Christianity, the people. 

The wisdom of the Druids was acquired with difficulty, and was intended for 
public effect, rather than for social and private use. The bible is equally valu- 
able in public and private, at home or abroad ; it can be cheaply purchased, and 
yet it is a treasure, to enjoy which, the greatest monarchs have resigned their scep- 
tres ; it is a friend, whose society is never amiss, and whose fidelity is most 
certain, when it is most needed ; its instructions are applicable to e\'ery possible 
3 



18 



situation in life, and thousands of martyrs have testified that they are joyfully 
obeyed even at the expense of life. 

The bards aroused the courage of the people by exciting the passion for glory j 
but none of the orders of Drnids discovered the passions which secure morality. 
They argued, they exhorted, they painted the beauty of virtue ; they demonstrated 
the greatest good, and the greatest evil ; but history and observation convince us, 
that neither eloquence, nor proverbs, nor reflection, nor experience can contend 
successfully against the passions. If reason had been a match for passion, the 
world would have been virtuous long since. Reason seldom makes avarice liberal^ 
ambition contented, revenge forgiving, but either of these passions is able to cor- 
rect or extinguish the others. Achilles was entirely abandoned to revenge, until 
Patroclus was slain, when grief for the death of his friend absorbed all his facul- 
ties, and made him forget his deep-rooted revenge. It is true, generally, that one 
passion will subdue another passion, when all considerations of morality are una- 
vailing. Now Christianity excites holy passions, which, whenever they gain the 
ascendancy, master the sensual and selfish ones. Love is the most engrossing and 
intense of all the passions, and Christianity excites it in all its varieties, from the 
most plaintive apprehension,to the most fervid ardor. It is a spiritual passion, an 
emanation from Heaven, and the more it is excited, the more spiritual becomes the 
subject of it, and the better is he armed against the attacks of sensuality. 

Repentance is another passion, if it be proper to call it such, which is excited 
bj Christianity in a variety of forms. It is the only passion capable of removing a 
sense of guilt, by a sense of pardon. In common with love, it can hope, when 
reason would despair. Although it frequently has the appearance of intense suf- 
fering, yet it is as true in this as in other cases, that 

"That heart can ne'er a transport know, 

That never felt a pain." 

The Druids furnished no passions to guard morality ; certainly not these most 
innocent of all the passions. They sent unarmed men into the battles of morality. 
Christianity supphes the armour, which makes her warriors invulnerable. The 
Druidical religion taught us our duty, but the Christian makes us love it. The 
only test of Druidical morality was the act; the only test of Christian morality is the 
motive, the passion, the love, the repentance, excited constantly both by hope and 
fear. The same sentiment is better expressed by Dr. Young, when he says, "that 
passion is reason, transport, temper here." The Druidical religion operated par- 
tially as a constitution. It certainly restrained the princes from violating the 
rights of the Druids, but it allowed of war, the prevalence of which tends to op- 
pression. The Christian religioi> operates as a constitution, by restraining all men, 
both governors and governed, from doing any wrong, under any pretence. It 
inculcates universal peace, the only security for universal liberty. Whenever 
Christianity shall be generally believed and practised, it will furnish in a correct 
public opinion, a better security for liberty, than any written constitution whatev- 
er ; it will be the universal liberator of mankind. 

The Druidical doctrine of the Metempsichosis served rather to amuse and mis- 
guide the imagination, than to subdue and improve the heart. Their belief of the 
immortality of the soul was rather a philosophical speculation, than a hope of 
heaven founded either upon the merits of the worshippers or their gods. It was 



19 



faith without practice. Its practical effect extended no farther than to induce the 
people not to be afraid to fight their enemies or trust their friends, inasmuch ag 
the loss both of life and estate would be made up hereafter. It was not produced 
constantly and prominently as the most important of all reasons for a virtuous 
life. But in Christianity, we are positively assured, that all the dead shall be re- 
animated and assembled before an infallible Judge, who will judge according to 
every man's work, and intercede in behalf of all who have followed him. Here 
is no uncertainty and no deficiency. No greater attraction can be given to virtue, 
no greater repulsion to vice, because obedience to the laws of God is rewarded 
with eternal felicity, and disobedience with eternal misery, and the way is clearly 
pointed out, by which the guilty may be pardoned. 

The Druids sacrificed large numbers of human victims to appease the wrath of 
their Gods. The justice of God is averted, and his mercy propitiated by the blood 
of Christ, by which we are justified, washed, sanctified and saved, not by the 
power, wisdom, or goodness of God as such, but by his mercy, through the medi- 
ation of our Saviour. 

The Druids and heathen could furnish their worshippers with no other image 
of God, than the works of nature or art, which were idolized instead of God. Our 
Saviour presents to his disciples, his own heavenly character, through which 
alone they can mentally contemplate the image, and supremely love the character 
of their Maker. 

The Greelis pourtrayed Heaven as the abode of mingled virtues and vices, so 
that our passions were sanctioned by the examples of the Gods, or at most, only 
diverted into different channels. The Druids discovered the sanctity of Heaven 
only to their own order, but left the depravity of the multitude uncorrected by fu- 
ture punishment. But Christianity describes Heaven as a place where innocence 
only is admitted, and it requires all men to prepare for the bliss of Heaven, by 
holiness on earth. 

The Draids instructed the youth, but the benevolent spirit of the Gospel re- 
quires us not only to teach the young, but the old. If Christians conformed to this 
spirit, they would make as ample provision at the public expense for educating 
the old as they now do in New-England for educating the young. 

The Drnids concealed some of their principles and institutions from the public. 
There is no concealmeut in Christianity ; on the contrary, the bible is free to all ; 
the Sabbath, a day disregarded in other religions, furnishes all with time for study- 
ing it ; the pulpit, a rostrum of virtue, unknown to other religions, attracts all to 
the belief of its doctrines ; and the church, a school of discipline, never opened 
even to the most refined nations of antiquity, assists all in reducing its doctruaes 
to practice. Alas ! what reason have we to lament that in all ages the Sabbath, 
the pulpit, and the Church have been profaned, abused and perverted. When 
will the Sabbath be set apart as sacred time ? 

When will the pulpit cease to inflame us with religious controversies, and be 
employed only in its legitimate business of subduing our pugnacious spirits? 
When will the Church be considered as only the means of grace, and not in some 
mysterious manner, as the spell and charm by which the numerous sects in Chris- 
tendom, each in their own way, expect to be transported to Heaven? When will 
its members take up their crosses, and not their creeds? When will they be dis- 



20 



ciplined for mutual sanctification, and not for battle array with heretics ? When 
will' those who are born again, be considered as born but babes in Christ, and not ag 
struck out at once, all wise and all armed, like Minerva from the brain of Jupiter? 
Questions like these might be multiplied, and the answer to them all will be, that 
the Church with all its corruptions, has already done more good to the world, than 
any other institution that ever existed. There is a moral sublimity in the slowness 
of its progress from the creation of the world to its great consummation. 

Empires and superstitions have fallen before it, but have infused into it a portion 
of their own principles, prejudices, and customs. Notwithstanding the load of 
idolatry, heathenism and politics with which it has been oppressed ; yet even 
in the darkest periods of its history, it has exhibited something of its divine 
origin. 

Take our own history as an example. It was the church that inspired the bar- 
ons to demand the Magna Charta. It was the church that stimulated the people 
to establish the constitution of 16S8, and consequently to the church we are in- 
debted for our own liberties. The church is still in its progress towards perfec- 
tion. Thousands of years must probably transpire, before the prophecies in re- 
lation to it will be fulfilled. In the mean time we can adore, though we cannot 
understand the designs of God, so that whether we look back upon the storms of 
time, where those objects near us, are but imperfectly seen, and those at a distance 
are invisible ; or forward, to the period when the sword shall be turned into the 
plough share ; or upward to eternity, where every thing will be shewn and ex- 
plained, we may rest entirely satisfied with that faith, which is beautifully de- 
scribed as the evidence of things not seen, and the substance of things hoped for. 

Our faith in the promises, that Christianity will ultimately destroy slavery, 
war and vice, and secure the liberties of every people is confirmed by the aston- 
ishing improvements it has already effected. 

I will select but one instance. It has already rescued one half of our species, 
the female sex, from degradation and bondage. Under heathen superstitions, 
females were treated but little better than slaves ; they were generally confined, and 
compelled to do right, by the impossibility of doing wrong. Under the Druidi- 
cal religion, a company of men associated together in large families with a com- 
pany of women ; hence they never knew the distinction between legitimate and 
spurious offspring, and hence parents did not rear up their children, but commit- 
ted them all when young to be educated by the Diniids. 

The orientals believed that the virtue of females could not be trusted. 
The Druids wronged the sex still more, by treating their virtue as worthless. 
But under the influence of Christianity, the purity of female morals became so 
conspicuous and interesting, that their admirers made it a point of honor to confide 
in it, and to vindicate it from the reproaches of infidels. Hence the origin of 
chivalry, and of the duels, tilts, and tournaments which prevailed throughout Eu- 
rope for so many centuries, until the character of the sex was triumphantly protect- 
ed by those who appreciated its worth. From that time to the present, wherever 
Christianity has been established, females have become the guardians of their own 
virtue, and have awed into respect the licentiousness of their former tyrants. 

It is almost impossible for us to estimate the blessings conferred upon us by the 
emancipation of females. In the education of children, in the domestic and so- 



2i 



cial circle, In prosperity and adversity, in sickness and in death, their friendship, 
kindness, and piety are inestimable. 

What can the sceptic reply to this achievement of Christianity ? The temporal 
happiness of one half of our race presents an argument in favor of Christianity 
not easily overthrown. 

If thus, by looking back, we discover the superiority of our religion to all oth- 
ers, how should our faith be strengthened, by looking forward to its distant effects 
in time and eternity ? False religions have answered all the purposes expected 
from them ; they have been adapted to the local and temporary institutions to 
which they have been subordinate, or with which they have co-operated. But 
Christianity can only be fully developed by the perfect state of society, which it 
is calculated to create. Its past achievements teach us to rely upon the promises 
that it will finally produce free governments, good laws, universal peace, justice 
and virtue, and to render all puuishments unnecessary. It is but just beginning to 
accomplish these heavenly designs. 

Let the Christians of this age, corrupt as it is, agree to forget their sectarian 
quarrels and competitions, and to exert themselves in endeavoring to make the 
known and undoubted laws of God to be honored and obeyed, and we shall 
speedily be gratified with a brighter view of Christianity, than any of the disciples 
of our Saviour, have thus far been permitted to behold. 

Christianity makes its disciples, citizens of the world ; it tempers that selfish- 
ness, which sometimes is called patriotism, but which in all ages has proved de- 
stmctive to our race. It tends to concord and social intercourse between nations, 
whereas heathenism in all its varieties permits nations to pursue their separate in- 
terests, even at the hazard of war. Mars was only one among the many heathen 
Gods of war, whose characters were wholly at variance with that prescribed to 
christians. Hence it is difficult for the christian to approve the sentiments of Ho- 
mer, who honors and elevates the warlike passions, which the christian is bound to 
suppress. A heathen, habituated from infancy to the indulgence of ambitious and 
vindictive passions, is willing to expose his country, his king and himself to the 
perils of war ; he is therefore fired by the strains of the martial bard. But it is 
not so with the christian. He is bound to forgive his enemies, and if with this 
forgiving spirit he still can admire Homer, his raptures are checked as Adam's 
should have been, when he admired the forbidden fruit, by his dread of its poison. 
Homer wrote to describe the evils of anger and discord ; but he did not condemn 
the manners of his age, or correct them by a more holy religion ; on the contrary, 
by describing his men and his gods as he found them, he seemed to be hardly con- 
scious himself, that the evils he deplored, necessarily flowed from the system of 
theology, he commended. It would have been a hopeless attempt for him to have 
reformed the world. Had he even lived in our age, and been a christian, and at- 
tempted to have sung the evils of wrath, it would have been almost impossible 
for him to have constructed his poem, so as to have corrected the inhumanity of 
his readers, since even the bible itself, inspired, as it was, by the Almighty, and in- 
finitely superior in all respects to Homer, has accomplished but little towards rec- 
tifying the erroneous opinions and manners, which have been derived from ancient 
heathenism, and the still more ancient transgression of our first parents. 

The portraits of Homer are so just to nature, that they are found as he delinea- 
ted them on all the pages of history ; only he has drawn them more skilfully and 
«':oloured theai more brilliantly than any historian ; but whcncvLn- Chrlstiauiix 



22 



shall have changed the character of our race, future ages will hardly be able to 
credit either the descriptions of the poet or the historian. It is our duty to hasten 
the advent of this blessed period. But at present the crael abominations of relig- 
ions, altogether more degrading than those of the Celts and the Greeks, cover the 
best portions of the earth ; the majority of the human family are still divided into 
castes, so injurious to their best interests, that it would seem to be impossible for 
any Christian to compare their condition, with what it must be, whenever Chris- 
tianity shall be fairly established in the world, without coming to the conclusion, 
that our holy religion demands of us, to re-inforce our Foreign Missionaries with 
successions of active, learned, and pious men, like Swartz, Carey, Morrison, 
Ward, Buchanan, Martin, Thomason, and others, whose names will long be cher- 
ished, after successive generations of men shall have occupied the places on the 
earth, where we are making our transitory figures. 

Nor should our exertions be limited to the conversion of the heathen. Chris- 
tian communities every where stand in need of constant revivals of religion. One 
of the most striking contrasts between Christianity and Idolatry in all its forms, is, 
that all men in idolatrous countries become readily good idolaters, whereas but 
few men in Christian lands become good Christians. The great majority are un- 
conscious of the importance of Christianity ; many speculate only upon it with- 
out reducing it to practice ; they temporize with eternity ; they strive to serve 
both God and man — more ; they roll up the rock of Sysiphus, which is con- 
tinually recoiling back upon them ; they look one way, and they row the 
other. The few, who submit to the gospel, complain of their own darkness, 
weakness and wickedness ; they pray for divine light to direct, and for divine 
grace to support them, and, the more they are reconciled to the cross of their Sa- 
viour, the more the necessity of humility, penitence and forgiveness. These pe- 
culiarities of our religion show, that Christianity is a system of individual and na- 
tional improvement, which has, as yet, advanced but little towards its ultimate 
state of perfection. Should the revolutions of liberty be followed through the 
successive periods of history, Christianity will be found to have exerted an almost 
incredible influence in favor of "the right's of Man," as the infidel, Paine, has 
styled them, and that his principles, and those of his instructors, Blount, Hobbs, 
Spinosa, Uriel, Accosta, Herbert, and others, have contributed but little towards 
the free and happy state of society, which, at present distinguishes England and 
America. I propose to attempt to show this influence of Christianity in future 
numbers, though I confess, that the attempt appears in my own estimation, as it 
doubtless will, in the estimation of better judges, altogether presumptuous. 

I cannot part with the Druids, without stating the points of faith in which 
they agreed with Christianity. 

I. They believed in one Supreme God. Sometimes they called him fate, 
because all events were irrevocably decreed by him ; sometimes providence, be- 
cause he provides for all events ; sometimes nature, because all things are de- 
rived from him ; sometimes the ivorld, because it existed forever. More gener- 
ally, however, they worshipped the sun, either as the true God, or as the best 
representation of him, and in this, agreed with the earliest Grecians and Romans. 
Plato and Aristotle asserted that divine honors were due to the visible Heavens. 
Behold, says Cicero, this sublime canopy, which we call Jove .' and then he j 
informs u.j of an old inscription found at Konie, which s:iys, that Optimus Max- 
imus was the Eternal Heaven. Socratc;i wor^jliipped the sun, and several times 



T 

33 

fell into an ecstacy in these devotions. The Chinese and Indians hold to much 
the same opinion to this day, and similar also was the opinion of Spinosa, and 
most of the English Deists, and of not a few of the Phiiosoplucal Christians. Be- 
lieving in one God, it is not surprising that mankind sliould have selected the sun, 
as the best symbol of him, since even we, with all our advantages, can form no 
other image of him, than the character of our Saviour. 

II. They believed that the one true God was to he worshipped. Suppos- 
ing, however, that he was eternal, invisible, and free from all care, and, that he 
appointed deputies to govern the world, they worshipped these deputies in his 
stead, particularly the sun, who seemed to exercise the greatest inspection over 
terrestrial affairs. Such was also the opinion of the Epicureans, and such is now 
the opinion, in substance, of most of the Heathens to whom we are sending 
Missionaries. From this opinion, (that God was unconcerned about mortal af- 
fairs,) arose polytheism, or the worship of his deputies, among whom were placed 
deified heroes. 

III. They believed that virtue and piety were the best acts of religious 
worship. Upon this principle, must have been composed the poetical hymns 
and harangues of the Vacerri, Eubates and Bards. Valor was their first virtue ; 
their acts of piety were various, complicated, absurd, and cniel. It is cheering to 
us to know, that all ages, however barbarous, and all superstitions, even the wor- 
ship of Devils, have manifested in some shape or other, the belief that virtue and 
piety are acceptable offerings to God. 

IV. They believed that we must repent when we sin. On this account 
they resorted to various and even human sacrifices, either as the evidence or the 
substitute of penitence. The substitute of sacrifice for the repentance being 
considered as the expiation of sin, has led not only heathen, but many christian 
communities into error. It has been the general opinion among mankind, that 
conscience accuses us of sin, and teaches us to repent. The Druids, however, 
and most of the heathen nations, believed that repentance was only an atonement 
for offences against God, but not for crimes against society. It is thought, that 
Christianity requires men also, to forgive all offences which are repented of 

V. They believed in rewards and punislwients after death. This doctrine 
has been so common, that some philosophers have declared it to be innate. 
Hence the practice of deifying public benefactors ; hence the maxim generally 
current through antiquity, that no one should be pronounced happy before death, 
that is, before his eternal destiny is settled ; and hence the many fables about 
Elysium, Styx, &c. 

It was this belief, that led the Druids to teach the people, to rejoice to 
die, fighting for their country, because this act of virtue was the best passport to 
immortal bliss. This corruption of the doctrine, perhaps tended to prevent the 
smaller tribes from uniting into larger nations, as in that case, they would have 
less opportunity to merit paradise by dying under arms. 

Such were some of the Christian doctrines, of which the Druids, and indeed all 
the heathen, ancient and modern, seem to have had a vague and general belief 
Whether these doctrines are derived from nature, or reason, or tradition from 
our fiiist parents, as is most probable, according to the Scripture account 
of the various dispersions of the human race, they are calculated to con- 
firm us in our belief of revelation, and to convince us of the necessity of im- 
parting the true light of the gospel to those nations, who still entertain these truths 




mingled with errors, follies, cruelties, and abominations, which almost entirely de- 
stroy their salutary influence. The Druidical religion was overthrown through- 
out Europe, by the arms, the arts, and arguments of Christians ; a similar pro- 
cess seems to be now in action over the continents of Asia and Africa, and it 
is our privilege to assist in conferring upon them the immense advantages al- 
ready enjoyed in Europe and America. 



1. 1 



